


Perfection at a Cost

by red_jaebyrd



Series: Whumptober 2020 [6]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bad Parent Talia al Ghul, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Damian Wayne Needs a Hug, Damian is a perfectionst, Gen, Hurt Damian Wayne, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Prompt: Blurred Vision, Protective Dick Grayson, Whumptober 2020, with his training what would you expect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27196030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_jaebyrd/pseuds/red_jaebyrd
Summary: 'You cannot rely on all your senses to be available to you in times of battle, Damian. There will come a time when you must compensate for the loss such as your sight. Concentrate.’He couldn’t believe his Mother’s advice would actually help him in the field. But she was right…at least at this moment.Damian had been trained to be the perfect soldier, but at what cost?
Relationships: Damian Wayne & Bruce Wayne, Damian Wayne & Dick Grayson
Series: Whumptober 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948573
Comments: 9
Kudos: 235





	Perfection at a Cost

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober #25 Blurred Vision  
> tw: mentions of abusive parent and abusive actions toward a child (as part of Damian's training).

Whatever had been sprayed into Damian’s eyes, somehow got through the lenses of his domino. Damian couldn’t see a thing, but blurred shadows. Anyone else would have been panicked that their vision had been compromised; overwhelmed that they had to compensate for a lost sense. Instead, Damian was angry. Fury surged through him at letting his guard down for a split second. He was better than this; he had been trained by the League of Assassins.

It was hard to keep his eyes opened. They stung and burned from whatever solution was sprayed in his face; and while pepper spray made the eyes swell, this substance made his eyes burn and his vision blurry. Still, Damian didn’t move, instead he closed his eyes concentrating on all his other senses. He used the acoustics of the warehouse to help him. He could feel the vibrations of clunky footfalls and hear heavy breathing. As well as smell cheap cologne and alcohol.

It was just like training.

_'You cannot rely on all your senses to be available to you in times of battle, Damian. There will come a time when you must compensate for the loss such as your sight. Concentrate.’_

He couldn’t believe his Mother’s advice would actually help him in the field. But she was right…at least at this moment.

Damian had been trained to fight blindfolded. His mother had insisted upon it as part of his training. At least in this situation, instead of complete darkness, he could still see blurred cloudy shapes. However, the straining on his eyes was giving him a migraine. He took deep breaths through his nose to block out the pain.

Fighting blind had been a hard skill to maintain now that he was living with his father. No one in the family would spar with him while he wore a blindfold. Father had refused, even though he was the optimal opponent and teacher. Grayson and Todd refused on principle. On rare occasions Damian had bullied Drake into sparring with him, but that had been only when Cain was unavailable.

Cain had been the only one amongst the family that had agreed with Damian that it was a worthy skill to maintain and therefore had agreed to help him preserve his muscle memory. However, she set the terms of the blindfold sparring sessions with him. She would not push him beyond his capabilities; the session would not go passed half an hour, and the first sign of injury or exhaustion they would stop.

But this wasn’t training, or sparring with Cain. Damian wasn’t fighting to hone a skill, he was fighting to stay alive and avoid capture.

He could hear Nightwing fighting three guys of his own in his periphery.

Damian stood his ground. If he concentrated enough he could see the blurred shape of a big guy in front of him. He continued to stay silent, yet maintained a fighting stance.

“Got nothin’ to say now that you can’t see, huh?” Big Guy taunted.

He heard someone snicker behind him to his left.

“Quit teasin’ him and be done with it, will ya! I wanna get this over with!” someone yelled behind him to his right.

Damian waited for Big Guy to come at him and sure enough the guy charged him with a punch. Damian was able to duck in time and connect a hit to his gut. He could hear him gasping for air. The second guy grabbed him from behind pinning his arms to the side, but his hold was sloppy. Damian knocked his head back hitting the guy square in the nose. The guy let go of him screaming in agony. Luckily the third guy coming at him was loud enough that Damian was able to land a punch and a kick to his face to finish him.

Amongst the din of the fighting, Damian wasn’t fast enough to move away from a sharp blow to the back of his head. Big Guy had come back for more. Damian fell to the ground seeing stars. His eyes and now his head were killing him. For the second time tonight, Damian had let his guard down. His Mother would be furious.

_Failure is not an option, Damian._

_You’ll never be good enough to serve in the League if you keep allowing your guard to fall._

_Your incompetence is shameful of an al Ghul._

_Get up. Stop crying. Pick up your sword._

Before the idiot could land another punch, he heard the familiar sound of escrima sticks hitting flesh; followed closely by the whistling sound of zip-ties.

Damian sat up, but did not stand. There was ringing in his ears and the light from the warehouse was hurting his eyes. Not to mention, the room was still spinning. He knew the familiar feeling of a concussion. He was going to be benched for at least two weeks. He was not looking forward to it. 

“Robin, are you alright?” Nightwing asked, bracing to help Damian stand. “That was a nasty hit you took to the head.”

He got up too quickly and swayed as his blurry vision filled with spots. “I’m fine.”

Damian kept his head down and his eyes closed. His eyes were properly burning now and the blow to his head ached making his muscles feel sluggish. The shame of allowing himself to be compromised was starting to take over as the adrenaline of the fight was fading.

“You sure?”

“I’m fine,” he answered again.

He followed Grayson’s black blur until they were outside the warehouse. Once outside everything changed. There was no light to help differentiate moving shapes from stationary objects.

Damian’s shame seeped away into panic. There were too many sounds of the city to help him navigate where to go. Too many smells to help ground him. Damian stopped moving at the doorway. He was not fine. He was exhausted and in pain.

“Robin?” Nightwing asked, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

It wasn’t a request. It was a demand. The tone in Grayson’s voice commanded the truth, no excuses. It was his ‘Batman’ voice. Damian was too tired to lie.

“I can’t see. They sprayed something in my face and it got through my domino,” Damian answered. “It was different in the warehouse. I could distinguish between the blurry shapes with the light and use the acoustics to my advantage. Out here there is no light and there are too many sounds and smells…and my head hurts.”

It was humiliating admitting the pain he was in, but he knew Grayson wouldn’t ridicule him for his honesty. In fact, Grayson would be concerned that he had kept his condition from him.

“We can fix that,” Nightwing said, bending down in front of him and tapping his shoulder. “Hop on, I’ll give you a piggyback ride.”

“T-T,” Damian replied, yet he wrapped his arms around Grayson’s neck as Grayson hooked his arms under Damian’s knees and stood up.

Damian rested his head on Grayson’s shoulder and his body finally started to relax.

“Don’t fall asleep. We still have to double check you for a concussion and flush your eyes out.” Nightwing reminded.

“I know concussion protocol, Nightwing,” Damian yawned, not moving his head from Dick’s shoulder.

He closed his eyes against the night air as they walked to where Grayson had parked his motorcycle.

“So the entire time we were fighting, you couldn’t see anything but blurred shapes and shadows?” Dick asked. “Dames we’ve talked about this, you have to tell me when you get hurt.”

“I was trained by the best to fight under any and all circumstances…including blindness. Saying something to _you_ would not have changed the fact that I could not see properly or that we needed to contain the situation.”

“All valid points, but I still needed to know that your vision had been impaired.”

Damian said nothing in response. There was nothing for him to say to make this situation better. Voicing injuries was something Damian was still not used to actively doing in or outside the field. The more Damian thought about it, Grayson was one to talk. He had hid a stab wound for a solid week before Alfred noticed that he kept favoring his right side. Hypocrite.

“Do I even want to know the types of methods your mother used to train you to fight blind?” Dick asked, breaking the silence.

“No.”

“Tell me anyway…please.”

The exhaustion Damian felt in his bones wasn’t enough to filter all the words that came spilling out. The disorientation from the concussion was like a truth serum. He told Grayson everything.

“Most of the time it was a blindfold, sometimes Mother used…other means; that was how I knew to use the blurred shapes to my advantage. It took me two years to master the skill. I was finally able to do it the summer before I moved in with Father.”

Dick sighed. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, Lil’ D. What she did to you was wrong.”

Damian and Grayson had faced enough situations with his mother in the past to get the gist of her mentality for perfection where Damian was concerned. This however, was the first time he had spoken of her methodology in regards to his combat training.

“Her methods, though unsatisfactory in a conventional sense, did achieve the desired result. Mother demanded perfection in every capacity and used every scenario to her advantage to make me a better fighter. However, my actions tonight did not reflect her training.”

“No, don’t do that to yourself. You are one of the best fighters I know and you did awesome tonight,” Dick praised.

“Do not patronize me, Grayson. I did poorly. I allowed myself to be compromised putting you and myself in further danger. I was trained to be perfect.”

“Nobody’s perfect and I’m not patronizing you. You fought three guys twice your size relying on shadows and blurred shapes; that takes skill. A skill you mastered at the age of nine. You did great. I don’t think I could have done what you did.”

“Probably not. Mother would still have been disappointed in me.”

“Well, she isn’t here. I think Bruce will be impressed.”

Damian wasn’t so sure.

* * *

They got back to the Cave and Damian allowed Alfred and his father to make a fuss over him. They flushed out his eyes, but since he also had a concussion it left no change with the blurred vision, but the burning subsided.

Damian gave a full report of the nights events. When it came to retelling his fight with the three criminals in the warehouse he hesitated. Dick sat next to him on the bed in the med bay encouraging him to continue his story. Damian was thankful that he couldn’t see his father’s face as he didn’t wish to see his disappointment. Once he was finished he turned his head away expecting to be admonished for his shortcomings on patrol.

“Wait, am I hearing this correctly that you fought three guys twice your size with your vision impaired and essentially used a form of echolocation to defeat them?” Bruce asked.

“Yes, it was part of my training with the League.”

“Son, I’m very impressed with what you did tonight.”

“But I failed.”

“No, you didn’t. Something like this could have happened to any one of us. I’m very proud of you.” Bruce praised, stroking Damian’s hair. “We will need to reinforce your domino and make sure that the lenses protect your eyes so this doesn’t happen again.”

A warm feeling washed over Damian as his father held him. There was no criticism laced in his words. No passive aggressive instructions on what he could improve upon next time. No tearing down of his capabilities and skills. There was only praise and most important of all, his father was proud of him.

“You are not angry with me?”

“Oh course not. I’m impressed with how you handled yourself and the situation. You did good, tonight, son. Now let’s get you to bed.”

He stood and swayed shutting his eyes tightly as his head started to pound at the sudden motion. The pain brought tears to his eyes.

Bruce moved swiftly to steady him and then picked him up gently pressing Damian’s head to his shoulder.

“I’m not a child. I can walk,” Damian sniffed, wrapping his arms tightly around his father’s neck and keeping his head on his Father’s shoulder.

“I know,” Bruce answered, rubbing light circles on his back. 

Damian tried to keep his eyes open, but somewhere between getting into the elevator and into his room, Damian fell asleep.


End file.
